Terrorism

This course examines the history, development, structure, and substance of international and regional human rights law. The course introduces students to the sources, nature, and scope of human rights law, the institutional architecture of the field, and the different contexts in which the language of human rights law is relied upon in practice. Drawing on contemporary case studies, the course invites students to think critically about the value and the limits of human rights law as a vocabulary for addressing different societal challenges. The course focuses on a selection of substantive human rights– including both civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights – and explores the operation of human rights law in different domains, including migration, poverty, and digital technology.

Twenty years ago…on 11 September 2001…Al Qaeda conducted a terrorist attack on the United States which killed almost 3000 people and injured another 6000. This collection of articles published in the journal Intelligence and National Security addresses aspects of intelligence performance on terrorism before and after the 9/11 attacks as a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

This volume addresses in various ways the four central categories of question that determine our understanding of terrorism: definition, causation, consequences and response. It therefore addresses unquestionably major subjects. It also does so with a sharp eye to the wider phenomena to which radicalization, terrorism, counter-terrorism and de-radicalization are related, including gender, ethnicity, religion, complex historical inheritances, migration, education, economics and societal resilience. So the arguments in the book evince an appropriate sense of the analytical complexity and interwovenness that are required, and declined according to the experiences in fighting against terrorism and radicalisation of experts of three different countries: Italy, a traditional Christian society, Azerbaijan a Shia, but secular society and Algeria, a Sunni society.

Radicalizzazione, estremismo violento e terrorismo sono problematiche ritornate di recente drammaticamente di attualità. La crescita esponenziale dei gruppi terroristici di matrice confessionale, soprattutto negli ultimi due decenni, la loro pervasività e la violenza che hanno riversato all’interno della società civile, sia in termini di azione, che di pensiero e di propaganda, hanno fatto sì che si innescasse un pernicioso effetto domino e la violenza settaria, di cui anche l’Occidente è diventato un teatro d’azione comprimario con quelli del Vicino e Medio Oriente, è andata producendo altri radicalismi ed altri terrorismi. Quale reazione all’estremismo confessionale si è constatata una crescita altrettanto pericolosa degli estremismi politici. Denominatori comuni, oltre alla violenza, i percorsi di radicalizzazione, sia eterodiretti, frutto di una sapiente e ben pianificata strategia, sia risultato di un percorso autonomo e del tutto personale. L’attrattività esercitata dallo Stato Islamico, così come quello dei discorsi razziali delle correnti suprematiste, hanno trovato terreno fertile in diversi strati della società contemporanea, soprattutto europea, tant’è che è difficile tracciare un profilo ben preciso del terrorista-tipo. Ciò che invece è possibile, grazie a studi teorici e soprattutto attraverso l’esperienza di esperti che operano direttamente sul campo e che quotidianamente cercano di contrastare il fenomeno è identificare le politiche, le strategie, i luoghi e le narrazioni utilizzate dai diversi gruppi per alimentare le fila del terrorismo internazionale, al fine poi di elaborare strategie sempre più efficaci di prevenzione alla radicalizzazione e di deradicalizzazione.
Sebbene lo Stato Islamico, il più recente ed anche il più significativo esempio per impatto, danni e conseguenze che ha avuto sulla sicurezza globale, sia stato sconfitto militarmente, la sua ideologia continua a sopravvivere, a radicarsi e a proliferare in diverse regioni del mondo. Una sottovalutazione della sua portata e della sua pervasività oggi potrebbe dare a ciò che resta dell’ISIS ed ai suoi molti gruppi affiliati, così come a quelli affiliati ad Al-Qaeda una importante finestra di opportunità per ricostituirsi e riorganizzarsi, continuando così a rappresentare una minaccia concreta per la società. Per contrastare efficacemente queste minacce, alle attività di contrasto e repressione di esclusiva competenza delle forze dell’Ordine vanno affiancate politiche di prevenzione, di formazione e di recupero, ovvero di deradicalizzazione, che possono essere messe in atto anche dalla società civile. Dall’azione sinergica tra queste due componenti si potranno avere risultati efficaci contro l’estremismo violento, la radicalizzazione ed il terrorismo, temi cardine del presente volume.
Il volume intende fornire le chiavi di lettura essenziali per poter approfondire la conoscenza dei fenomeni di radicalizzazione e dell’estremismo violento, così come delle politiche di de-radicalizzazione, di inclusione ed integrazione sociale, rendendo informazioni e soluzioni elaborate dagli specialisti del settore, accessibili a tutti ed impiegabili nei diversi contesti che contribuiscono alla creazione di politiche efficaci contro la radicalizzazione ed il terrorismo, quali quelli politico-istituzionale, economico, operativo, sociale e socio-educativo.

Abu Omar Khorasani was taken from Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi prison and unceremoniously shot.
The first and only person to have been executed since the Taliban gained full control of Afghanistan, Mr. Khorasani was the head of the Islamic State in South Asia until he was arrested by government forces last year.
The precise circumstances of his execution are not known. His killing was, however, at least in part designed to send a message to the international community, and particularly Afghanistan’s neighbours, including China and Iran, as well as Russia, Central Asia’s security overlord.
The message was that the Taliban were cracking down on foreign jihadists and militants in Afghanistan.

There are several reasons for the collapse of the Afghan army but a duplicitous US negotiation with the Taliban was the most potent and the insurgents exploited the uncertainty brilliantly.

President Joe Biden's claim that the Afghan army "did not have the resolve" to fight for its own country would seem to be true following its disintegration. But it is as much a misrepresentation of the truth as US and UK ministerial claims in recent days that the collapse came as a complete surprise.

Having taken control, the Taliban want the world to believe that they have become more pragmatic and inclusive in the twenty years since they brutally ruled Afghanistan. Whether true or not, will be determined by the group's attitudes towards jihadists and other militants, ethnic and religious minorities, women, and governance.

Extreme militant groups use their media campaigns to share information, recruit and radicalize followers, share worldviews, and seek public diplomacy ends. While previous research documents that various on-the-ground events correspond to changes in the groups’ messaging strategies, studies of how competing militant groups influence one another’s media campaigns are nascent. This study helps fill that gap by examining how successful attacks by one militant group correspond to changes in both the perpetrating and competing groups’ visual media messaging strategies. It examines attack success through the lens of violent acts that result in direct impact (measured through death counts) and indirect impact (measured through traditional media coverage levels). The study utilizes a content analysis of 1882 authority-related images in AQAP’s al-Masra newsletter and ISIS’s al-Naba’ newsletter appearing three issues before and after each attack, and a chi-square analysis comparing four ISIS attack conditions (high death/high media, high death/low media, low death/high media, and low death/low media). The findings show that a high number of resulting deaths, rather than a high level of media coverage, correspond to changes in the media campaigns of both the perpetrators and the competing groups, with key differences in visual content based on group identity.

Using terror management theory, we examined whether mortality salience (MS; death-related cognitions) increased support for religious and political extremism and/or violent extremism in young Indonesian Muslims. Muslim and non-Muslim Indonesian students studying in Australia were randomized to an MS or control condition. Following completion of a distracter task, participants were asked to rate their agreement/disagreement with another Indonesian Muslim student’s (bogus) statements toward extremist views and violent extremist actions. After controlling for alienation, Muslim students in the MS condition reported significantly higher levels of support for extremist views than did non-Muslims. There was no significant effect of MS on violent extremist action in either Muslims or non-Muslims. The results suggest that reminders of death (MS) may lead young Muslims to be more supportive of politically and religiously extreme views, but not violent action. Our findings lend partial suppor...

Older Americans have Saigon 1975 and the helicopters from the Embassy roof seared into their memories. A previous generation of Britons was haunted by the image of General Percival surrendering vast numbers of troops and equipment in Singapore to the Japanese in 1942. How Kabul falls to the Taliban could have important practical and symbolic significance.

Southeast Asia captivates Al Qaeda (Saudi Arabia/Middle East)  to enter this region because Osama Bin Laden knows that Southeast Asia is the second priority of the US in fighting international terrorism. Southeast Asia is also referred to as…

The Taliban’s rapid advance towards Kabul shows clear signs of learning from previous failures. The chances of a revival of the old Northern Alliance are minimal. Regional powers are left with the option of maintaining diplomatic contact with the Taliban whilst not taking any assurances on trust.